Archive for May, 2011|Monthly archive page

“Yeah, pretty much,” says M2. “On the plus side, the emitter program keeps a record of which landings are safe, and which place us under siege. When it jumps, it avoids spots we know to be dangerous.”

“I also have the emitter program connected to the medical database, so it selects destinations based on our current inventory. So if we need to restock our stores, it takes us to an area where we can gather raw materials or purchase fresh supplies,” adds the good doctor.

“But we’re dead in the water unless we tighten up downtime between cycles,” I grumble.

“So,” I say. “The boys in black are our primary problem. But we need more intel before we can begin planning anything more complex than defensive patterns. Moving on: assets. Em, talk to me about the emitters.”

“What do you want to know?”

“All the bad stuff. Is there a limit to how many times it will transport us each day? Does it need time between cycles?”

“They’re self-contained, self-powered, but we will need about 9 minutes between each jump.”

“So say that we get attacked. We jump, and then land in an equally terrible situation someplace else…and we’re screwed, yeah?”

“That by any other name would smell as sweet, no? Who cares what we call the boys in black?” seethes M2.

“Margery,” the doctor coos at M2, “Breathe. It’s a valid question.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m just so frustrated. We have so many enemies, but we know so little about them, and we’ve done nothing to deserve this. I hate that we’ve come to this, hiding like rabbits in a warren.”

“You know what? Let’s start fresh. Let’s take inventory of everything. Enemies. Resources. Allies. Everything. If we could figure out the mechanics of traveling, we can handle anything.”

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, doubly so when you’re using the morning meal as a strategic planning session. Black coffee, steaming bowls of bim bip bap, and blackberry-filled croissants. Perfect fuel.

“Let me ask you two something,” I say, dabbing the corners of my mouth. “Are we positive that all the writers are in the same camp? For that matter, are we sure it’s only the writers that are aligned with the boys in black?”

“And why do we call them that?” adds Doc. “We must have some idea what motivates them, what organization controls them.”

I’m always keenly aware of the fact that I am dreaming, on those rare nights when I see pictures in my sleep. Despite that knowledge, events are never under my control. I’m a passive passenger, a corralled victim that can only watch the story unfold but never intervene.

This time, I watch a pack of dogs fight over a meaty bone, a massive femur from some primordial creature. One by one, the dogs fall, bloodied at the throat or belly by one of their cousins.

You don’t have to be well-versed in the imagery of dreams to understand this one.

Back to bed. For a change of pace, I’ll try staring at the inside of my eyelids instead of the shadows on the ceiling.

Tomorrow, we start to build something. The pen might be mightier than the sword, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to mount a counter-attack against the writers and the boys in black. The writers aren’t innocent in this; they allowed themselves to be used like weapons. They are just as important to take out as those gun-toting bastards.

The first Doctor I met kept an extensive library. I wonder if this Doc reads Sun Tzu?

It really is something of a cavernous complex, this hospital of Margeries. It’s all lavish, every lab I can see state of the art. I’m a little fuzzy as to how the various Doctors earned such massive wealth in their respective timelines, but it must have been something incredible, something that would make the Bolus look like Benadryl.

The Doc is right: despite its size, it’s nowhere near big enough to act as a command center.

There are some doors that won’t open to me. They are sealed with biometric scanners, and I wonder how they differentiate between us all.